


One on One

by Egg_Koji413



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aged-Up Mako, Character Study, Family Feels, Gen, Grief, Inspired by Fanfiction, Loneliness, Mako-centric, One Shot, Post-Canon, Post-RoTE, Second Chances, Time Jump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:06:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27690439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Egg_Koji413/pseuds/Egg_Koji413
Summary: Over the years, Mako earned several titles he was fond of, however, “Team Avatar’s Perpetual Bachelor” wasn’t one of them.
Relationships: Mako (Avatar) & Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16





	One on One

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Furnace (Aside)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26656177) by [KodiakSage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KodiakSage/pseuds/KodiakSage). 



> During my on-going journey to collect as much Mako-centric fanfiction, I came across the linked fic by KodiakSage. Since there are such little works, outside of Wuko, from Mako's perspective, I hyper-focused on their fic and began to form a "What If?" scenario in my head.
> 
> Optional listening track - "1/1" by Brian Eno

* * *

Over the years, Mako earned several titles he was fond of, however, “Team Avatar’s Perpetual Bachelor” wasn’t one of them. A photo in the recent papers of him alone at Korra and Asami’s wedding sent the city’s socialites into a frenzy. Not less than a day later, rumors and speculation spread through the news media, trying to uncover the mystery of why and how the stoic officer lacked a “ball-and-chain” and the title was born. The headlines they created were ridiculous, making it seem there was something physically or mentally wrong with him. Equally ridiculous were the lines of single ladies willing and waiting to end his condition. Worse yet were the whispers at the police headquarters. Rookies with their own theories; each one more outrageous than the last, ignoring the simple fact that their superior was untethered to anyone but himself and his job. 

And it was how he preferred it to be.

 _It’s none of their damn business anyway,_ Mako thought, but the hundreds of letters and gifts from adoring “fans” continued to arrive daily. He wasn’t sure why all the fuss was not since his age started showing; a few lines around his jaw, a couple strands of dark grey in his hair, and a dullness to his eyes. He liked to think it was only because his job was taking its toll on him.

As much as he denied it, the lacking brightness in his eyes was out of loneliness. The sudden shallow interest in him only served to make it worse. But he wasn’t desperate, so when his detective showed up in his office with a moving box overflowing with junk one morning, an irritating twitch started in his pointed brows. 

“Sarge… you _might_ wanna take a second look,” the younger man cautioned after peeking at the folded paper taped to the lid, then ducked out of the office.

Mako grumbled out of frustration and removed his glasses to rub away the twitching. Glasses back on his face, he yanked the paper from the lid. He assumed it was yet another extremely _detailed_ and _enthusiastic_ love letter from an unwanted suitor. Unlike the rest, the sender wasn’t a complete stranger but an old one-night stand he met at a festival in the Fire Nation several years ago. 

Had she come to the city to relive that night? Back then, the suffocating need to not be a fifth wheel to his brother and his friends sent him seeking any willing partner, and she had been so willing and as damaged as he was. His younger self would take her up on her offer with little thought, but another flair in triad activity kept him in a constant workflow. Easing his loneliness was a waste of time, no matter how badly wanted the company as meaningless it was. Mako read further through the letter, hoping to discover the motive for it as he did with every case dropped on his lap, but once her ex-boyfriend came up, the investigative drive died. She mentioned the two of them getting back together a week after that night, then winding up in an on-off-cycle before getting married last year. 

Mako scoffed and thought, _Your marriage can't be that great if you're contacting a one-night stand you remember from twenty years ago._ Annoyed the twitch below his eye returned, he skimmed through the rest of the rambling letter. _Blah blah dream wedding. Blah blah honeymoon. Blah blah surprise baby._ She prattled on and on about her pregnancy then about bending and genetics when her kid’s firebending manifested. She ended the letter by saying she didn’t care about the truth when she put the missing pieces together and loved her kid regardless of it. _And they then lived happily ever after. Great._ He refolded the letter in a half-assed square, tossed it back with the disturbing amount of paraphernalia of him, and flipped open a case file.

* * *

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

The clock on his desk ticked in his head. Agitating. Tiresome. Not as irritating as the sensation pulling him back to the box. He ran his hand up the back of his skull and rolled his shoulders to erase the feeling, then dug through the top drawer of his desk for a worn, pocket-sized notepad and read the stupid letter for a second time. 

Then a third.

Then another, slower than the last. Slow enough for him to jot down a few reappearing terms in her rambling: Night. Festival. Lonely. Firebending. 

Pregnant.

He stopped writing to reread the section where she wrote about firebending. Most of it made little sense either way, as the explanation behind bending wasn't a complete science. She mentioned an absence of firebenders in her and her husband's, then-boyfriend, ancestry; their connections to firebenders were strictly by marriage, not by blood. Neither had been unfaithful while they were together, and the only other man she’d slept with was a tall, handsome Pro-bender she met nearly two decades ago. 

“Sarge,” his detective interrupted with a knock and peered through a crack in the door. “A patrol unit responded to the BOLO sent out on the dame that left the box this mornin’. I’m headin’ out to check.”

Mako nodded once without taking his eyes away from the paper in his hand. “Keep me updated.” The sound of the door clicked in his head, as did the nature of the letter.

 _No… no, I was careful._ He dug through the memories of that night. He might not remember the woman’s face or her name—he sure as _hell_ remembered using a condom.

But the wretched things weren’t foolproof. 

The letter slipped from his hands onto his paperwork as he leaned back into his chair and gripped the armrests. 

"Pregnant..." 

He tested the word in a dull tone, then a second time in understanding; the weight of it echoing with the sound of the clock. Mako leaned forward on his elbows and cupped his head between his hands, careful to not mess up his uniformed hair as he rubbed his temples to calm the throbbing. _I… have a kid._

Beyond the shock and denial, a flutter tapped the unstable walls around his heart. How many years had he spent imagining a family of his own? Someone to call a part of him; call his. To fill his empty apartment with life. To not feel so out-of-place surrounded at family gatherings. His gaze rose to the portraits of his extended family. Photographs doubling, tripling in size with every new generation. Young. Old. Short. Tall. Eyes in earthly greens and browns and a lone pair the color of daybreak; another reminder of his bachelorstatus. 

The opportunity to marry never presented itself in the manner he wanted. It would have been _too_ easy to pick from any of his "admirers"; their names, addresses, even a few photographs were so _thoughtfully_ included in the pile growing in the corner of his office.

Ignoring all logic that he was a stranger to them and vice versa, Mako wondered if it was a boy or a girl. _No, stop!_ He pinched the bridge of his nose and buried the dream of a family away and focused his troubled mind back to work. _You’re a stranger to them. You're nothing to them._

* * *

His concentration flattered when the cases started to blend together. To be freed of his morbid curiosity, Mako reached into the box and grabbed another letter. As he unfolded it in a rush, a small photograph slipped from the crease. It slid across his desk and stopped against the framed photograph of his parents with him and his brother as kids. A little girl reflected against the glass between his mother and him. A stranger by all sense, but side-by-side, the two of them could’ve been twins.

Heavy heartbeats rattled in its cage as Mako unclasped the buttons of his gloves and slipped the material off to free clammy palms. He reached for the photo of her, relaxing the muscles in his hand and the tremor in his fingers with a quick flex. Bewildered eyes flicked between their mirrored facial features. Shorter than him by a few inches, but that was _his_ chin, _his_ jaw, nose, cheekbones, his damn _eyebrows_ … _his_ girl.

Racing thoughts struggled to focus on her mother’s written words as he skimmed through her letter again. Her mother never intended to hide the truth about her biological father, but nowhere in the letter did she explain why she never came forward about his daughter sooner. 

He reached into the box hoping to find more answers and instead grabbed an aged, crispy paper covered in a mess of colors and messy handwriting. Not earning the rank of Sergeant for nothing, Mako deduced it was a faded painting of a tiny angry man with jagged lines of blue around his arms inside the middle of a giant grey man. Confused, he flipped the paper to examine the note; one handwritten by a child. 

The collar of his uniform tightened around his throat, making the deep bob of his Adam’s Apple painful against the material as he read: 

_“Me and Mommy read the newspaper! Does your arm hurt? Do you get to come home now? The beach near Granma’s house is the sunniest. She says the sun makes people feel better. We can go to the beach every day so you can feel better! I miss you! I love you! -Y.”_

He placed her painting to the side then tugged the box closer. Rolled inside an old poster of the Fire Ferrets, he found another of him, not as angry as the last, and dressed in his team uniform, his hands on fire, and a happy little girl next to him with her own tiny flame. Again, her note was too short: 

She spent that day with her mother meeting every firebending trainer in the capital. It didn’t matter if they trained the best Fire Nation soldiers or even the Fire Lord, none of them were _him_. He was the best the firebender in the world, and she was just waiting for him to come home so he could teach her. 

Carefully sifting through the rest of the box, Mako compiled two decades worth of information about this mysterious life he unknowingly created until his desk overflowed with paintings, sketches, drawings, and letters from her; each ended the same way. 

_“I miss you...”_

_“I love you...”_

And a single initial.

A roaring flame rose in his stomach and his detective mindset launched into full throttle. Mako stored the triad case files into their appropriate cabinet then cleared the large cork board dominating one side of his office. From the top drawer of his desk, he grabbed a piece of scrap paper that he wrote the letter “Y” on and pinned it to the board. He separated and organized every bit of information gathered into categories: her likes and dislikes, hobbies, fears, dreams. He froze when one of her fully formed letters asked if he ever dreamed of her. 

“I would’ve,” he mouthed, breathless, his voice lodged by the forming lump in his throat. “If I knew... I would’ve.” 

Was the box an invitation for them to meet? He was surprised she didn’t hate him after all the years of silence. _I bet the family could whip up a dinner for her-No, that’d be too much too soon… I can call Asami to set up something for the five of us at Kwang’s. There’s a match tomorrow night we could catch after, too. I bet she’d love it! I know Bo wouldn’t mind if we used the gym to practice our bending and I’m sure Korra could teach her some pointers too!_ Once he realized his daughter would have to return to the Fire Nation, he altered his plans. _She has to be old enough to attend the university here and it’d be pointless to waste the yuans on a dorm. Hell, the apartment’s hers if she wants it!_

He didn’t care if he was getting a little ahead of himself.

She claimed his heart--his home was the only thing left to give and the two things weren’t that different in his opinion; small, mostly empty, and eagerly awaiting to be filled. 

The sounds of the day passed unnoticed; he needed to make up for the lost years. Closer to the bottom of the box, he found fewer paintings and letters, but a single hotel room key and one of Future Industries' latest voice recording journals. 

His detective called over the radio. “I’m on my way back to headquarters from the hospital.”

Mako huffed a short burst of flames through his nose to keep from snapping at him for interrupting. “I thought you were investigating the BOLO?”

“I was, but there was a nasty pile up when I got there-”

“What?”

“Yeah, a bunch of Satomobiles and a couple of trolleys. Fellas on patrol said the ambulances had already hauled some of the victims away.”

Leave it to karma to ruin everything for him; her losing her mother wasn't how he wanted their first meeting to be. Mako pinch the bridge of his nose and asked, “and the woman? Middle-aged? Fire Nation?

“Fire Nation, yeah, but this girl ain’t over twenty.”

His ears rang.

“Shame too,” his detective continued, “she’s in pretty rough shape. Her friend said she was visiting family then they were gonna take a tour of the university. Said she called the girl’s mom to let them know what happened. You want me to bring’er in?

"Sarge?

"...you still there, Sarge?”

Mako acknowledged him, denied the request then clipped the receiver back in its place.

Two decades of overworking himself caught up to him. His bones became lead weight. The damaged nerves in his scarred arm pricked uncontrollably. He felt so very old and so very tired. 

And then he felt nothing at all.

Her voice journal sat untouched. He replayed it over and over, fingers automatically rewinding the device when the message ended, embedding her voice to memory like a brand; the last ember of a once wild flame.

_“Hello. It’s 9:15 a.m., and it’s snowing. I’ve never seen snow before, but you might have guessed that already. This is my last day staying at the hotel downtown, and this might be the first and the only time I… get to talk to you._

_“I’ve thought a lot about what I might say, but regardless of what I’d planned, I have to ask, did you ever think about something like this happening the night you met Mom? I think if you had, there’d be no reason for me to find you; you’d come to me._

_“I mean, if everything I’ve heard about you is true, why wouldn’t you? You helped save the world-you’re a hero! So why wouldn't a_ **_hero_ **_want to meet their daughter? Why_ ** _wouldn’t_** _you want to meet me-_

_“-I’m... I’m not angry about it. Or at Mom or even at you, I… I should keep this short, there's a cab downstairs waiting for me. If for whatever reason you’re too caught up in another case, know that I still wanted to meet you, even if you didn’t feel the same; I accepted that as a possibility years ago. Anyway, I should get going. For what it’s worth, my name is Yeong.”_

* * *

The sounds of evening rush hour traffic echoed in the motionless space of Sergeant Mako’s office. The sun dipped below the horizon and shrunk to a sliver across the walls.

“Hey Sarge?” his detective called through the door. “Sarge?” He poked his head into the office. Curious and slightly concerned eyes followed the flow of gathered evidence then stopped at the empty box. “I can... get rid of all this stuff if you’re headin’ home-” 

At him touching a painting, the sergeant’s hand curled tightly around a corner of the box with a white-knuckled, tendon flexing grip. “No,” he replied, his voice low and distant, then cleared his throat, “I’ll deal with this. Make sure to leave a copy of the report on my desk before you leave.”

His detective did as he was told. As the empty shell of a human being left his office, he heard his detective call out. “Hey Sarge, you, uh, you got a visitor. Say-“ he turned to the ghost following him “-what's your name again?”

Mako answered for her. “Yeong...” 

Her flushed, freckled cheeks deepened to a healthy red. With her head held low and timid fingers picking at the trim of her coat, Yeong sighed, “I’m very sorry to bother you, but I accidentally left my hotel room key in the box. If I could just get the box back, I’ll be out of your way.”

He said nothing.

A few minutes of awkward silence passed before his detective stepped toward him and in a casual tone asked, “Is this the case for Chief Beifong?” 

Mako released the file from his vice grip and composed himself as best as he could. “I heard your friend was in an accident, is she alright?”

Her nods were quick and subtle. “Yes.”

More awkward silence. He wasn’t sure which was worse: his inability to say anything to his daughter when only a few hours ago he imagined his rest of his life with her or his detective’s slack-jawed stare at their blinding resemblance.

“I understand you’ve been waiting to meet me.” Mako silently thanked the Spirits, Shu, Agni, and every other sacred entity that the collar of his uniform hid his hard swallow. He pushed open the door to his office. "Please, come in…”

She hesitated then smiled sweetly and entered.

“Sergeant.”

His locked gaze snapped up to the younger man who inhaled and exhaled and motioned for him to do the same. 

Dim embers flickered back to life as Mako’s shoulders rose and fell. He flattened the hem of his uniform, straightened his glasses, and slicked back his hair. For the press to see him in such a state, they would label him a rookie far too worked up about having a pretty dame in his office after hours.

But the truth wasn’t any of their damn business.


End file.
